suppose," I said, poking the fire log. He
grinned rather sheepishly.

"Well, I haven't had any, and I've certainly missed it," he said.

"Fasting's healthy, you know."

I thought of Senator Biggs, who carried enough fat to nourish him for
months, and then I looked at my visitor, who hadn't an ounce of extra
flesh on him.

"Nothing's healthy that isn't natural," I declared. "If you'd care for
a dish of buttered and salted pop-corn, there's some on the mantel. It's
pretty salty; the idea is to make folks thirsty so they'll enjoy the
mineral water."

"Think of raising a real thirst only to drown it with spring water!" he
said. But he got the pop corn and he ate it all. If he hadn't had any
luncheon he hadn't had much breakfast. The queer part was--he was a
gentleman; his clothes were the right sort, but he had on patent leather
shoes in all that snow and an automobile cap.

I put away the glasses while he ate. Pretty soon he looked up and the
drawn lines were gone. He wasn't like Mr. Dick, but he was the same
type, only taller and heavier built.

"And so it isn't a hotel," he remarked. "Well, I'm sorry. The
caravansary in the village is not to my liking, and I had thought of
engaging a suite up here. My secretary usually attends to these things,
but--don't take away all the glasses, Heb--I beg your pardon--but the
thirst is coming."

He filled the glass himself and then he came up and stood in front of
me, with the glass held up in the air.

"To the best woman I have met in many days," he said, not mocking but
serious. "I was about to lie down and let the little birds cover me
with leaves." Then he glanced at the empty dish and smiled. "To buttered
pop-corn! Long may it wave!" he said, and emptied the glass.

Well, I found a couple of apples in my pantry and brought them out, and
after he ate them he told me what had happened to him. He had been a
little of everything since he left college he was about twenty-five had
crossed the Atlantic in a catboat and gone with somebody or other into
some part of Africa--they got lost and had to eat each other or lizards,
or something like that--and then he went to the Philippines, and got
stuck there and had to sell books to get home. He had a little money,
"enough for a grub-stake," he said, and all his folks were dead. Then
a college friend of his wrote a rural play called Sweet Peas--"Great
title, don't you think?" he asked--and he put up all the money. It would
have b